Coming out the closet

If you have your breath bated for any salacious sexual revelations, bug off, this is a clean read!

Literally so, in some ways.

I spend a day every month sorting out the chaos that somehow attacks my closets on a very regular basis. It is not my doing, I swear, because I hardly ever go into some of those spaces. Well, I do, but not all of them, all of the time. But it is like a computer virus almost – it is usually slow but totally destructive, destroying any semblance of order and use-by dating that I may have managed to imbue my wardrobe with. So when I read an article in an international publication that talked about closets being the latest in lifestyle statements, I was – understandably, you will agree – thrilled.

I am not clothes crazy, honest.

(Those loud guffaws you may hear if you had the right sound card on your computer are just my father, clothes designers and assorted friends being rude. Ignore them.)

I just happen to like fabric and enjoy the process of creating something out of the swatches I accumulate. So I admit it: I probably have more than I actually use.

(‘Need’ is a different argument, trust me.)

In my room there are two large closets full of clothes, some locked into steel for the ‘going out’ sort of days every woman (and man, I say sternly, remindingly) has. These are mainly in silk and linen, carefully crafted and engineered after much argument and a sort of rudimentary but ruthless horse-trading – this cannot be done unless it is lined; I will take it only if it has the right stole; take off those dreadful buttons or I will take off without the outfit; ad nauseum. The other closet is home to everyday garments, some bought off the rack, others made for me. My bed is also a repository of clothes, from ratty pyjamas to flop around in at home to jeans of various colours and provenances to stuff that can be worn to work even on a slushy monsoon day.

Perhaps I am spoiled for choice?

No one I know would argue that issue, but I would. Be practical, I beseech you. You need just the right outfit for just the right occasion, after all. Can you really go to dinner at the Zodiac Grill, Mumbai’s swishest restaurant, in 15-year-old jeans and an oil-stained T-shirt? Can you go into work at a newspaper office dressed in a strappy silk crepe and silver net creation that has a Name signed on its discreet tag and mandates the accompaniment of four-inch diamante-studded spike heels? Could you possibly make Sunday lunch wearing your brand new satin lounging pyjamas?

Ha, ha! My laugh has more than a tinge of derision to it.

Suitability is ALL when it comes to getting dressed. Thus you need an entire panoply of garments, each for a specific purpose. Which is why you, as a thinking, feeling, sensible human being, need a whole lot of space to store those very same garments in.

Which comes full circle back to the problem of closets.

Methinks that, more than closets, a closet manager is more useful. Any aspirants for this vacancy? Remuneration and benefits as per market standards….